Wait! I went to New York!

So, I almost forgot. Raych and I went to NYC/NJ in January, and it was a blast. Some good friends of ours are professional ballroom dancers out in New Jersey, and we finally got around to making out way out there to see them. The trip was fantastic. We ate at swanky restaurants, saw a very cool, very powerful play*, hung around Manhattan, and overall got to hang out and get our chillin like villains on.

We also met up with my agent, which is always a fun time, and did some...other things while we were there, that I can hopefully talk about soon.

In the meantime, look! Pictures!

Hanging out in Times Square.

A great view from where we took the bus into the city.

Said view in the nighttime.

And...other things...

* Disgraced was a fantastic play about race--how we view ourselves, and how we view others (as the Other and otherwise...yeesh that's a lot of other...). Phenomenal acting, and it was one of those truly great pieces of media that sort of changes the way you think about things.

A round-up of my recent posts on the publishing industry

Title pretty much says it all.  They're all here, for your convenient pleasure:

In which I talk about small presses and contracts and the controversy between Hydra and SFWA.

In which I talk more about small presses and contracts.

In which I link to [more] John Scalzi and propose the idea of presenting a counter-perspective.

In which I link to Hydra's changed contract terms, due in large part to what SFWA and John Scalzi put into motion.

In which I present aforementioned counter-perspectives.

In which I share a letter from a new, small, traditional press (Jolly Fish Press).

So there you have it.  That won't be the last you hear from me regarding the shifting world of publishing, I'm sure.  But for now, it's enough.

Hydra Imprint Changes Contract Terms

Well would you look at that.

Thanks to John Scalzi and the good people at SFWA, Writer Beware, and everyone else who helped bring this about.

That said, as mentioned in my previous post, I'll be looking at the other side of this business model (the profit-sharing version) to see what so many publishers seem to think is so grand about it.  More info on that in the next few days.

Small Presses and Contracts (cont'd)

I posted earlier an interesting controversy between Hydra, an imprint of Random House, and SFWA (and, in particular, it's president John Scalzi).  I have a few more things to say about that.

Many of the small presses (TM Publishing, Jollyfish Press, and Stonehouse Ink) that I encountered at LTUE a few weeks ago expressed some of the same contractual terms that SFWA so vehemently rejects in the Hydra imprint, namely that they didn't offer advances to their authors.  I'd be interested to see what their other standard contractual terms are, and whether or not they align very closely with the other objectionable Hydra terms.  Honestly, at LTUE, each of those small presses seemed pretty respectable.  They were, slowly but surely, making me into a believer in the no-advance, small-press world.  But, having witnessed this whole controversy, and thinking back on the fact that the most specific reasons I can remember them offering for not offering an advance were (1) "the publishing industry is changing" and (2) "we're a small press, we're just starting out, and we'll sink or swim with our authors," (those aren't really direct quotes, but general summaries of what I remember a few of their editors saying) I'm doubting once again.

As far as (1) is concerned, well, that's true.  The publishing industry is changing, and it's changing a lot.  Traditional publishers are on the defensive, scrambling to secure their place in the future publishing world.  Self-publishers and small presses seem to be emerging on top, or at least on more equal ground than that which they had occupied only two or three years ago.  The business model is changing, and I can see why small presses might attempt to not offer an advance.  In an era where audiences are shrinking and writers are a dime a dozen (among many other reasons), an advance may not be very practical, especially for a small press that's just starting out.  That said, Hydra is still the imprint of one of THE top publishing houses, so why they wouldn't offer an advance (other than to make more money for themselves and screw authors) is beyond me.  I think what Hydra is doing is despicable; I think what many of these other small presses are doing is merely self-serving (which, honestly, I can't blame them for that, but it doesn't make me feel better about signing a contract with them).

Regarding (2), well, each of these presses is relatively new to the publishing industry.  It wouldn't surprise me if they didn't have much funding available to them to give out for advances.  TM Publishing and Jollyfish, as far as I know, haven't even released anything yet.  That said, if they're picking up writers now, without offering an advance, there aren't many reasons why they would start doling them out in the future, even if they do start making a fair share of cash.  My issues with large presses not offering advances aside, I still have a hard time swallowing the decision with small presses. The small presses I talked to at LTUE were all about ROI (return on investment)--they didn't give out advances because they wanted to make the minimal investment with maximum returns.  From a business perspective, that makes absolute sense.  I'd like to do the same thing.  And not giving an advance, of course, is very minimal investment, so minimal that I worry whether the publishing house will care at all whether the author succeeds or not.  To me it seems less of a "sink-or-swim together" mentality and more along the lines of "you can put our name on your book, but if you sink, we won't dive in after you."  That sounds like a pretty dismal deal, if you ask me.

So, as for me, I'm going to continue pursuing publication through the traditional route first.  I'm looking for agents, publishing houses that have been around for at least a few years (Tor and Pyr are my personal preferences [i.e., in a dream world I'd be picked up by one of those two houses]) and that publish on multiple formats (both print and ebook), and of course, contracts that offer an advance (among many other things, hopefully).  I think that's the route for me.

That said, indy-publishing and small presses are really gaining traction, and I don't want to rule them out entirely.  I admire what a number of them are doing on a business level; I just don't want to see the author get screwed in the process (not only because I am one, but because I think that sort of business kills the artistry of the thing, which, in the end, is what I'm most interested in).  I would certainly prefer the traditional route, but I'm open to all options.  Who knows where the publishing industry will go in the next few years, anyway?

Also, if you're interested, John Scalzi talks more about why he thinks advances are so important over at his blog, Whatever.  Check it out.

Small Presses and Contracts

There's been an interesting exchange going on between SFWA (Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America) and Random House's relatively new ebook imprint, Hydra.  John Scalzi (blogger, SF writer extraordinair, and current SFWA president), in particular, has been up in arms about some contracts he's seen from Hydra in the past few days.  It's an interesting conversation.

Basically, the Hydra imprint is offering some pretty bad contract terms.  Mr. Scalzi compares them to the raptors in Jurassic Park, testing the fences of the writing industry and looking for weak areas they can take down.  Not only do they not offer an advance, but they also charge the author for costs that have traditionally been borne by the publisher.  Their infractions against the writing community go further than that, but those seem to be the two big ones (Mr. Scalzi lists those infractions in their totality [at least according to him] here).

In response to these dismal contractual terms, SFWA denied the Hydra imprint as a qualifying market for SFWA membership (which is, for all intents and purposes, the SF/F equivalent of the WGA, and holds quite a bit of sway over the community and market).

Random House responded to SFWA with this generally civil but nevertheless pretentious letter essentially saying "Wait!  You never even gave us a chance!"  To which SWFA responded, essentially:  "Why would we waste time giving an exploitative, predatory imprint a chance?"

My hat is off to SFWA, and in particular, Mr. Scalzi.  They're doing their job, and they're doing it well.  They're siding strongly with writers and protecting writer's rights (Writer's rights?  There's a tongue twister in there somewhere.  Writer's writing rights are rightfully written wittily rather than ritfully, and...).  As a writer who is still seeking publication, it feels good to know that I have, essentially, some high-ups on my side, looking out for me.

I have more to say about this, but I'll have to get to it later.  For now, the writing calls.